War of Immortals: Old Friends and New Faces

My girlfriend says there aren't enough syllables. I would like to amend my suggestion to the esotericismist.

esotericismist.

Esotericmetrician, IMO.

esotericmetricismist

if enough people like the post Paizo devs do legally have to use it

My girlfriend says there aren't enough syllables. I would like to amend my suggestion to the esotericismist.

The other classes do fine with fewer syllables. It's the same number of syllables as Kineticist, at that. (What?)

Or maybe Evoker? Invoker's swallowed up for Flexible Spellcasting witches, but in the sense of using esoterica to evoke particular effects???

As Monk goes, I'm not sure what to do. "Martialist" is a little too close to more typical physicals for my liking. "Virtuoso" is the best I have at the moment...

It's doing kineticist numbers?? we have to do better. we can't let kineticist beat us!

Monk is kind of a poison pill. There really isn't a good name for it, and if any class would justify just bending the "one-word class" rule, it's monk. It's actually not dissimilar to the other class we're talking about--you're a warrior using a mix of esoteric and pseudo-magical techniques that nobody else really understands. Your accomplishments are downright miraculous, in fact.

As such, I vote we rename it the thaumaturge.

FWIW I dislike keeping the Inquisitor name for evil deities.

Because it also has a VERY strong Lawful leaning.

Posters above easily mentioned Inquisitors of ZK or Asmodeus. But speaking about Inquisitors of Rovagug just sounds ridiculous.

I dunno, I think it's fine? It's not like the Inquisitions themselves were super principled. The Spanish Inquisition ultimately amounted to a power grab. The cruelty comes across, and the cruelty is what matters with servants of an unholy god. An inquisitor of Rovagug goes around rooting out would-be artists and creators and servants of Sarenrae. The arguable real problem with an inquisitor of Rovagug is the ban on extended torture, but otherwise, there's nothing stopping a bloody Rovagug-worshiping Inquisition from overtaking Belkzen.

Yet. We have a new orc goddess arriving on the scene, after all. ;)

Also, not to belabor this point, but I think "chaotic" and "lawful" are much fidgetier concepts than they used to be, and that's useful here. An vengeful "inquisition" led by some especially cruel Calistrians is totally plausible.

In that vein, the exemplar doesn't have light armor because Nahoa wears Polynesian-inspired armaments

I assume he mistakenly said "light" instead of "medium", but since he's otherwise saying "the exemplar doesn't have light armor" in present tense kinda implies the class isn't going to have it because we are just one month away from release so we are beyond the phase in which this could be changed.

I could be wrong though and he probably meant "heavy" instead of either "light" or "medium" or probably he was indeed correct saying "light" which probably means exemplars have something that boosts their unarmored AC (it could be expert to unarmored AC or something more meta like replace Dex with your KAS for unarmored AC).

I think more he means that the reason the Exemplar has light armor isn't because Nahoa wears what he does - Nahoa wears what he does because its thematically appropriate in design. I don't think he was commenting on the mechanical options of having Medium armor.

I think that, assuming PF3e would endeed rename classes to divorse itself from D&D, it would very likely also mean that some classes would be thrown to the gutter too, and the classes that I think have the most tickets to disappear in such case it would likely be monk, ranger, and sorcerer.

Sorcerers came into existance in 3e because spontaneous casting became a thing in that edition, so if PF3e did away with vancian casting as a whole (which I think is very likely all things considered) there really wouldn't be a reason to keep the sorcerer as the wizard would already cover its place.

Rangers always were this middle point between fighter and rogue which always has been its biggest problem because they always stay in the lower tier of classes because of that lack of identity since being a "nature expert" barely matters when skills are a thing an everyone can be a nature expert.

"Monk" as a class concept is perfectly fine and certainly has its niche, but in a D&D-divorsed system it really doesn't make sense to have "monks" being the martial artist/unarmed expert class and its very likely their unique traits would be splitted among other martials (the unarmored expert side likely going to barbarians, the barefisted warrior to fighter, and the qi mystic could be an archetype or have all martials have "supernatural" options from the early levels to kind of replicate that feel).

Okay calling shenanigan's unless it's a misdirect. Because she's totally on Desna's team with those colors unless she's now an Iconoclastic Pharasmin.
I know fashion is subjective and red wasn't great either, but 3/10 Imrijika. Fire your tailor, LoL

Put me in the traditionalist Pharasmin camp tyvm!

Imrijka’s outfit is now done in Pharasma’s holy colors...

Clothing

Pharasmin clothing takes two different routes. For many traditionalist or more ascetic priests, the only acceptable color for formal garments is black, sometimes accented with silver (such as spiral brooches or amulets) and tiny vials of holy water. In recent generations, however, there has been a movement in many temples away from such dour fashions. Pointing out that the solemnity of death is only part of their concern, such iconoclasts celebrate the birth of new life by wearing more colorful and fancifully designed raiment. Instead of traditional black robes, they gravitate toward silver, gray, purple, and the iridescent blue of the goddess’s spiral. In addition to color, these iconoclast priests often add highly artistic elements to their clothing, designing their own unique outfits as a reflection of their unique threads in Pharasma’s great tapestry. While outright conflict is rare, the two camps of Pharasmins have strong opinions regarding each other’s clothing choices.

I think more he means that the reason the Exemplar has light armor isn't because Nahoa wears what he does - Nahoa wears what he does because its thematically appropriate in design. I don't think he was commenting on the mechanical options of having Medium armor.

Correct.

Oh, what a bummer.

I still don't lose hope for exemplars having a way to boost their unarmored AC since Nahoa likely still neds a way to protect himself (mechanically)!

Imrijka is not a priest, so she's not bound to the uniform. It's more an informal dress code. :P

I still don't lose hope for exemplars having a way to boost their unarmored AC since Nahoa likely still neds a way to protect himself (mechanically)!

Maybe that girdle is PF2's equivalent of the mail bikini? Only time will tell.

Imrijka's new design is really cool, by the way. The artist did a really good job preserving her old feel while innovating and giving the outfit a lot of personality. I think my favorite thing about Imrijka, design-wise, is that a handful of iconics have been a little de-fanserviced over time to reflect more in-character fashion choices, but not Imrijka. And that implies that canonically, the scary grim-faced Pharasman vindicator does just like dressing this way. Maybe she is an iconoclast.

Oh, what a bummer.

I still don't lose hope for exemplars having a way to boost their unarmored AC since Nahoa likely still neds a way to protect himself (mechanically)!

The character with a big weapon but light armor is such a common and iconic fictional archetype it still kind of boggles me that Paizo has yet to provide any support for it.

exequiel759 wrote:

Oh, what a bummer.

I still don't lose hope for exemplars having a way to boost their unarmored AC since Nahoa likely still neds a way to protect himself (mechanically)!

The character with a big weapon but light armor is such a common and iconic fictional archetype it still kind of boggles me that Paizo has yet to provide any support for it.

I mean, the closest I think would be a dragonblood dragon instinct barbarian that took Scaly Hide at 1st level.

Oh, what a bummer.

I still don't lose hope for exemplars having a way to boost their unarmored AC since Nahoa likely still neds a way to protect himself (mechanically)!

I also don't think he was commenting on the post playtest exemplar, just the thought prosses of the playtest exemplar. Player feedback was overwhelmingly in favor of more armor.

Yeah, and that's so flavor-limited. Honestly, I'm holding out hope for some sort of clever archetype.

Imrijka is not a priest, so she's not bound to the uniform. It's more an informal dress code. :P

...
Imrijka's new design is really cool, by the way. The artist did a really good job preserving her old feel while innovating and giving the outfit a lot of personality. I think my favorite thing about Imrijka, design-wise, is that a handful of iconics have been a little de-fanserviced over time to reflect more in-character fashion choices, but not Imrijka. And that implies that canonically, the scary grim-faced Pharasman vindicator does just like dressing this way. Maybe she is an iconoclast.

Ssshhh, let me be a grumpy old coot ;)

Edit: And of course yes. I'm all in for Imrijka being an Iconoclast.

If we are talking about potentiially renaming monk in a way that preserves the many different things it does, what about Cultivator? It covers the wide array of abilities monk has rather well and always had cultivation fantasy elements.

I do hope exemplars get medium armor

I think cultivator is an even worse name than monk because most people don't even know what a cultivator is. Even I that I been in the hobby for a while and in fantasy pretty much my whole life most people would think I would have heard the term "cultivator" used at least once, but funnily enough it wasn't until like a couple of months ago that I discovered that cultivator was an actual concept that related to martial arts. I used to think it was related to farming lol (it probably doesn't help that english isn't my first language and in spanish cultivator sounds eerily similar to "cultivador" which could be translated as a farmer).

Gosh, but that's such a cynical way to look at the game's success, isn't it? It's possible that WOTC fumbling the ball has helped PF2's business recently, but PF2 was successful long before WOTC pulled that crap. We're talking about the success of PF2 as a whole. I don't know, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth to dilute praise for skilled creators with a shot at another company.

exequiel759 wrote:

Oh, what a bummer.

I still don't lose hope for exemplars having a way to boost their unarmored AC since Nahoa likely still neds a way to protect himself (mechanically)!

The character with a big weapon but light armor is such a common and iconic fictional archetype it still kind of boggles me that Paizo has yet to provide any support for it.

They have, haven't they? A Fighter/Ranger/Barbarian/etc. with primary strength and secondary dexterity can just do it for higher reflex, they can dodge penalty to their speed and really maximize their carry weight.

A character like that is always going to have a lower Armor Class than they actually need to be a proper frontliner, though. You're deliberately nerfing yourself with no benefit, since you could just wear light armor and still get no speed penalty. A -1 or -2 net to AC is pretty punishing, and just because you can play it doesn't mean it's supported.

The cruelty comes across, and the cruelty is what matters with servants of an unholy god. An inquisitor of Rovagug goes around rooting out would-be artists and creators and servants of Sarenrae. The arguable real problem with an inquisitor of Rovagug is the ban on extended torture, but otherwise, there's nothing stopping a bloody Rovagug-worshiping Inquisition from overtaking Belkzen.

I think the problem is basically that any character who worships Rovagug is inherently a maniac. There's no trouble having an Inquisitor of Lamashtu who roots out people who would scorn and oppress those who are "different." This person is still likely evil, based on their behavior, even if they're sometimes in the right. They're also not remotely lawful.

When we're looking at the good side of the equation, there probably is someone in Torag's church who does inspections on worshops and build quality and the like, but that person can just be a cleric.

Count me as entirely skeptical of these archetypes. They essentially look like “classes by another name” - major narrative and mechanical changes to a class. Just make them classes already.

Bloodrager - eh, you guys thought the edgelord was gone from Paizo? Drinking your enemy’s blood is a little…edgy, no? I mean I love it, and always loved the Elf Headhunter steals heads and wears them on a belt and draws power from them from the German CRPG Sacred 2. So yeah. A little sus on the whole “all feyblood means wall of thorns” or “all tag/foes blood means x spell” - it seems cookie cutter and incredibly light on complexity. Not all fey are woodsy types. It just seems like in the interests of wordcount or…not making this its own whole class you get approximations of powers that are abstractions rather than true details.

Avenger - eh, another godbound. I mean, totally on-brand becoz Wars of Immortals etc, but beyond seeming like a Rogue…it seems like a Rogue. Ok, this one probably didn’t need its own class. There’s not much here, that, yes, I agree, a Ruffian Rogue with a coat of dogma couldn’t do. But please, let them holysneak attack with a greatsword. It would be fun. And currently, not a lot is.

Vindicator - ack! No the….vindicator will…totally….get you!!! That is truly an awful name. Reminds me of the spinoff Spawn comic about the Admonisher who spent every frame admonishing his enemies with perspicacity and volumes of absolutely alliterative aggression. Name aside. It is also….god-focused again. Gah. It seems…interestingly like a mashup of 1e Warpriest, Cavalier and Inquisitor, though likely vindicator’s judgment will be a robust and elegant version of 1e’s Judgment. No, just kidding, I expect it to be a class feat at some higher level that doesn’t particularly wow in quite the same way.

Still, I have hope that this….wait….it’s based on being a Ranger?!? Now, yes, I read Michael’s reasoning, and yes….that all makes perfect sense. In that, again, also, yes, Rangers fit a weird place where they probably don’t need to exist…but…really? This one needs: a name change, to be its own class and to lose the godstuff. Could be fun.

For some weird reason, though I’m a religion-averse atheist I *do* tend to gravitate (when not just playing strict martials) toward Warpriests, Inquisitors and Druids. I think it has way, way, way, way, way, way less about “power of the gods” (read: it doesn’t at all) and more about having something actually interesting to do other than just mash face, that isn’t “stand at the back and pling spellgloop” (actually factually happens…all the time). So, again, weirdly, I have no small investment in seeing these classes actually be interesting. But they don’t seem to be.

Gosh, but that's such a cynical way to look at the game's success, isn't it? It's possible that WOTC fumbling the ball has helped PF2's business recently, but PF2 was successful long before WOTC pulled that crap. We're talking about the success of PF2 as a whole. I don't know, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth to dilute praise for skilled creators with a shot at another company.

That’s not quite what I’m saying, but I get how you could read it that way. From my understanding, PF2 was more successful than PF1, sure, but the OGL fiasco and resultant uptake of PF2 that saw so many books fly out of the warehouse that many more needed to be reprinted to feed the ravenous new PF2 players was definitely a shot in the arm for PF2 that has carried on to this day.

I totally did not intend this as a backhanded compliment to Michael or the staff, but I did want to point out that the success was not entirely of their own making. I’m not sure how that “takes anything away” unless you really want to attribute more cynicism to the discussion.

I have been a staunch supporter of the ruleset, and though I am quite critical of the company, its business and HR style and ultimately its ownership, I am absolutely supportive of the staff and the union. I would hope that my points are taken as an attempt for clarity rather than being mean spirited.

A character like that is always going to have a lower Armor Class than they actually need to be a proper frontliner, though. You're deliberately nerfing yourself with no benefit, since you could just wear light armor and still get no speed penalty. A -1 or -2 net to AC is pretty punishing, and just because you can play it doesn't mean it's supported.

Wait, light armor, or no armor?

Because my interpretation here is that we're talking about maxing the dex cap of a light armor.

Also - props to the artist, but I’m still waiting for the Wayne Reynolds versions. ;)

(Also, Paizo, still missing Way e’s iconic awakened animal (Large crab) Guardian and vegepygmyfolk Commander (uses eyewinks and bursts of pheromones to communicate).

Reading these comments and others out there over the years, it really does feel like "dammed if you do, dammed if you don't" when you are a creator. The past week I've seen people say, "Paizo needs to stop making classes and focusing on what they already have," but also see "these class archetypes should have been full on classes." I think sticking to what feels right and what inspires the creators and supplementing that with data and feedback from structured things like polls is the only way to really go about things without getting overwhelmed.

Now don't get me wrong sharing opinions or thoughts is fine, especially when done respectfully. I know we certainly have in the past about wanting Bloodrager as a class, but we are excited to see what the creatives do with this class archetype version. It does feel inspired and just enough like the base barbarian to be a part of it while being it's own thing. Never gonna appease everyone, so you have to be proud on your work on your own and ask, "did I feel good doing this."

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

A character like that is always going to have a lower Armor Class than they actually need to be a proper frontliner, though. You're deliberately nerfing yourself with no benefit, since you could just wear light armor and still get no speed penalty. A -1 or -2 net to AC is pretty punishing, and just because you can play it doesn't mean it's supported.

Wait, light armor, or no armor?

Because my interpretation here is that we're talking about maxing the dex cap of a light armor.

Oh, you got me there. I was looking at the original quoted poster, but Squiggit seems to have pivoted to something more general.

If we are talking about potentiially renaming monk in a way that preserves the many different things it does, what about Cultivator? It covers the wide array of abilities monk has rather well and always had cultivation fantasy elements.

Cultivator makes them sound more like horticulturists than martial artists, imo.

Reading these comments and others out there over the years, it really does feel like "dammed if you do, dammed if you don't" when you are a creator. The past week I've seen people say, "Paizo needs to stop making classes and focusing on what they already have," but also see "these class archetypes should have been full on classes." I think sticking to what feels right and what inspires the creators and supplementing that with data and feedback from structured things like polls is the only way to really go about things without getting overwhelmed.

Now don't get me wrong sharing opinions or thoughts is fine, especially when done respectfully. I know we certainly have in the past about wanting Bloodrager as a class, but we are excited to see what the creatives do with this class archetype version. It does feel inspired and just enough like the based barbarian to be a part of it while being it's own thing. Never gonna appease everyone, so you have to be proud on your work on your own and ask, "did I feel good doing this."

I certainly agree with that. One week we have had posts and threads asking why there are only 5 class archetypes in the entire game after 5 years of active development, and another (read: this) week we have people wanting these new class archetypes as full classes instead. There's simply no pleasing everyone.

And that makes sense, given the group of people talking during Week B are likely not the same people who were talking in Week A. After all, people are typically more likely to write up a complaint or negative feedback than they are to simply leave a compliment or positive feedback. There's a reason Paizo keeps asking people to leave positive reviews. They simply aren't many being written most of the time.

Paizo basing their developmental decisions on the data they have at their disposal to attract and satisfy the widest range of players and GMs possible is a fine metric to measure their success. There will always be detractors, and each detractor will probably have their own problems and solutions of the system in their minds. Better to make a good game for many people than to strive for an impossible "perfect" game for some.

I like to homebrew from time to time, and if my profile pic doesn't prove that I liked the inquisitor enough to try to port it over to PF2e then I don't know what thing would. I really like the inquisitor but like Michael said it really was a class that could only exist in the context of PF1e and in the book it released. The class simply does too much stuff to make a "clean" port into PF2e so you have to focus on one of its aspects, but while doing so the end result likely won't be an inquisitor anymore. It also didn't help that a lot of people liked the inquisitor because of its archetypes and not because of the base claas itself which was, to be frank, not that powerful. Regardless of how you made this conversion people aren't going to be happy. However, I and likely many people still expect to see a divine gish at some point and neither of the class archetypes from this book prevent or delay this from happening. In fact, we know battle harbinger is going to be a thing in Divine Mysteries which will likely be what everyone expected the warpriest to be in PF2e.

I hope these class archetypes perform well and are well received by people because until now the few class archetypes we had certainly leaved a lot to be desired. I want to see more class archetypes because the concept behind them and how they function rules-wise is really cool. I also don't believe bloodrager could be its own class and a class archetype is perfect because the bloodrager was...quite literally a barbarian with a sorcerer bloodline. The most intriguing thing about bloodragers was having demon or dragon blood and such, which is a thing the base barbarian can cover now with instincts so bloodrager becoming a bloodrager makes perfect sense in PF2e.

Unikatze wrote:

Am I correct in understanding you can't multiclass into class archetypes?

Like, you can't play a Ranger with the Bloodrager dedication, can you?

I don't think so, since the Class Archetypes have a requirement of "must take [insert name of class archetype] specialization], which wouldn't be covered by a multiclass dedication.

As I understand it, Class Archetypes are specific to a class. Bloodrager is specific to Barbarian, for example. Since one of the aspects of the Class Archetype is that you give up or modify some of the basic class abilities, it's difficult to envision how that might work in general, although there are, iirc, spellcasting Class Archetypes that are applicable to spellcasting classes generally.

So i understand better, Vindicators are Holy and Inquisitors are Unholy? So Vindicators have to choose a deity with Santification.

Santification? Santafication? I don't think Santa has much to do with it. :-)

Inquisitors are Vindicators who choose Unholy sanctification. Vindicators do not necessarily have to choose any sanctification.

FWIW I dislike keeping the Inquisitor name for evil deities.

Because it also has a VERY strong Lawful leaning.

Posters above easily mentioned Inquisitors of ZK or Asmodeus. But speaking about Inquisitors of Rovagug just sounds ridiculous.

One does wonder why a TTRPG should be constrained by the linguistic prejudices of some early twenty first century English speakers.

Let's aim higher, folks. Why's it even still called "the Pathfinder RPG"? It's not like the Pathfinder Society is all that influential on the world or the system at this point. I for one hope that Pathfinder Third Edition finally fixes that minor bug.

Monk is kind of a poison pill. There really isn't a good name for it, and if any class would justify just bending the "one-word class" rule, it's monk. It's actually not dissimilar to the other class we're talking about--you're a warrior using a mix of esoteric and pseudo-magical techniques that nobody else really understands. Your accomplishments are downright miraculous, in fact.

As such, I vote we rename it the thaumaturge.

P.E.I. Bonewits, who fancied himself a Druid, listed a whole bunch of names for different types of magic users in his Authentic Thaumaturgy, none of which has any similarity to their use in Pathfinder. I suspect that he would, if re-naming the Monk class, choose "Theurge", because he associated it with "magic as a way to attain spiritual and intellectual growth". Or perhaps Mystic ("anyone who uses mostly passive talents and rites for mostly theurgical purposes").

I think more he means that the reason the Exemplar has light armor isn't because Nahoa wears what he does - Nahoa wears what he does because its thematically appropriate in design. I don't think he was commenting on the mechanical options of having Medium armor.

For some reason this comment conjured in me a vision of a character wearing nothing more than a loincloth -- an item of clothing or more to the point "armor" that protects his entire body, toes to eyes and the top of his head, to the same degree, whatever its "armor class" is. Which to me is a fine example of how silly the abstractions of our game can sometimes get. :-)

It has occurred to me--through my preoccupation with the heroic art of Frank Frazetta--that since armor runes can be inscribed onto "Explorers Clothing"--that is to say, regular clothes--you could in fact have not just one but an entire party of adventurers up to snuff on their AC wearing nothing but a ragged (if intricately brocaded) scrap of modesty cloth.
At high levels it might not even be that inadvisable, since most armor evens out to a plus five and is therefore mildly redundant if you get your dex bonus that high.

Nice to see Imrijka again!

Oh joy, another "What would you rename monk" off-topic debate! Loathe though I am to perpetuate off-topic meandering, (they said, lying through their keyboard) nevertheless I feel it behooves me to point out for those debating the merits of the term "Cultivator" that, as of the most recent publication, Cultivators are a thing that exists under that name in Golarion.

Sure, in a hypothetical Pathfinder 3/3.5e there's no saying that the names that stand for certain concepts can't change around, but it seems worth knowing that the concept currently described as 'Cultivator' is something quite distinct from Monks as we currently know them.

Personally, I've grown somewhat fond of "Disciple", but that's probably a discussion for another thread, if this topic truly must resurface once again.

Sorcerers came into existance in 3e because spontaneous casting became a thing in that edition, so if PF3e did away with vancian casting as a whole (which I think is very likely all things considered) there really wouldn't be a reason to keep the sorcerer as the wizard would already cover its place.

No, I really don't think so. Mechanics could be closer, but learned magic, accessible to most, and inherent magic, which you must be born into most of the time, are two very different concepts and I think the game would need both anyway.

Count me as entirely skeptical of these archetypes. They essentially look like “classes by another name” - major narrative and mechanical changes to a class. Just make them classes already.

I mean - the bloodrager was always going to be a barbarian. The only question was whether it'd be a class archetype or a regular instinct, and whether they'd manage to jam sorcerer bloodline representation in or not. They are not going to make another class that rages for a fixed damage increase, esp since that opens up the potential to poach two rages via MC. I guess they could also make a completely new not-rage mechanic, but why?

Vindicator is a Ranger because it shares the hunt prey architecture and focus spells and wants to poach many of the ranger tricks like sharing prey anyway. They're not going to rewrite the dozen perfectly usable ranger spells for the divine martial that wants exactly the same numbers if they can just do this.

They're all divine because first, this is a divine book (there's two, divine fans be eating good) and second, because Paizo has stated repeatedly that their design always revolves around strong flavour hooks (waiting to hear back from them about my weathercaller pitch) and it turns out divine swordsman is a very deep flavour well.

I am curious if some way of accessing the class archetypes via MC would be available, though, it'd be a shame f you can't MC into these class archetypes, moreso than the existing ones. Well, actually, would be nice to MC into the elementalist version of a class, actually.

Kittyburger wrote:

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Oh, also, they renamed the slayer, too, pretty obviously because "slayer sounds kind of murderous". I'm not actually saying the inquisitor change was entirely about offensiveness. I think they probably thought "inquisitor sounds kind of evil and might distract players".

Source, by the way: One of my players who didn't know the game well once played an inquisitor of Shelyn. His read on the class was that of an oppressive heel, so the joke was an extremely aggro orc Shelynite. The connotation is there.

I'm pretty sure the devs would change barbarian to berserker if they could get away with it, just because it's clearer, but it was a core class.

To me, "Slayer" should be some kind of magical rogue subtype - but I'm admittedly a 90s girl and when you say "Slayer," I think Buffy.

Buffy is just the only fighter in a party of envoys, thaumaturges and a couple casters. Her apparent superpowers are really just that extra +2 to-hit.

If that's what you think...you really don't know what a Slayer is!

Personally very happy to see class archetypes come into play. They could be an great implementation for a lot of reasons.

Making more and more classes means that extra feats per class get stretched very thin. Look at how many core classes get extra feats from aps, lost omens, or other books compared to more niche classes like inventor or thaumaturge. Adding vindicator to ranger means not only do you have less classes to make specific feat support for, but you also have a pretty hefty backlog of feats already available.

It saves space in other ways too, not having to add in all the regular text that have to be added to every class. Just pick the things you want to change up and you're golden.

As pf2e matures, concepts people pine for get more and more narrow. Not to overly simplify as I know there are some with pretty radical wishes, but a lot of character concepts people want are simple things like 'magus but primal list' or 'kineticist but Shadow' or what have you. The class archetypes in this upcoming book are perfect examples of that sort of wish coming to fruition, with extra paizo flair to make them stand out even more than just 'ranger but divine'.

Im completely here for wave 2 of class archetypes. Its the expansion to ruleset that I'm most interested in; there's so many classes now that I'd rather just have altered takes on classes than new ones

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Kittyburger wrote:

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

Oh, also, they renamed the slayer, too, pretty obviously because "slayer sounds kind of murderous". I'm not actually saying the inquisitor change was entirely about offensiveness. I think they probably thought "inquisitor sounds kind of evil and might distract players".

Source, by the way: One of my players who didn't know the game well once played an inquisitor of Shelyn. His read on the class was that of an oppressive heel, so the joke was an extremely aggro orc Shelynite. The connotation is there.

I'm pretty sure the devs would change barbarian to berserker if they could get away with it, just because it's clearer, but it was a core class.

To me, "Slayer" should be some kind of magical rogue subtype - but I'm admittedly a 90s girl and when you say "Slayer," I think Buffy.

Buffy is just the only fighter in a party of envoys, thaumaturges and a couple casters. Her apparent superpowers are really just that extra +2 to-hit.

If that's what you think...you really don't know what a Slayer is!

"Trust me when I say you're gonna find out."